A discursive, philosophical memoir about everything from the human desire to shape nature to what Mabey calls the ambiguous experience of gardening in the midst of an environmental emergency

Financial Times

Part memoir, part naturescape... there is also something much rarer in this book: wisdom. What a treat

The Times

This is obviously a meditation on place, but also--crucially--on time. On how we respond, practically but also morally and emotionally, to the accelerating change around us. A classic for this moment

- Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Falter,

Inspirational ... meditative ... an advocate for a new non-domineering understanding of the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world

Spectator

A crusade in defence of a natural world under threat ... Mabey's powers of nature observation, and his gift for translating them into words has made [his work] both celebrated and timeless

Sunday Telegraph

Both instructive and exciting, often ecstatic... Mabey is a great, pioneering nature writer

Irish Times

Engaging and erudite... a great read

Anne Treneman, The Times Magazine Christmas Wishlist

A lovely companion to Olivia Laing's The Garden Against Time, The Accidental Garden sees nature writer Richard Mabey on fine form ... The light touch in his writing and his gardening allows for a delight in the everyday wonder of nature

Observer

This is Classic Mabey: witty and wise, mixing profound concern with the environment with delight at the way in which nature never fails to surprise us

BBC Wildlife

An enchanting, meditative account of a garden and its lives

- Noreen Masud, author, A Flat Place

A wonderful memoir... Every page is dotted with pearls of wisdom gleaned from his decades as a nature writer

The Times

Part memoir, part journal, part treatise ... this slim book captures it all. A thoughtful, lingering read

- Elizabeth Wainwright, Geographical

At once intimate, investigative, scientific and beautiful... Irresistible

Irish Independent

Eloquently and succinctly written by an enlightened ecologist ... a celebration of the garden, its meaning to us as humans, our memories, our long lives, what we can leave for future generations

Plantlife

These are wide-ranging debates that cover the gender-fluid nature of plants, decolonisation, migration, native/nonnative, reparations for nature through the lens of the wood, the lawn, the pond and the flowerbed. I felt like I'd spent a great afternoon, lying in the dappled shade of a garden tree, listening to Mabey muse on a life with plants.

Gardens Illustrated

Encourages us to think less of conquering the landscape and more of sharing it with the myriad creatures and organisms that treat our lawns and beds as home

The Tablet

In a fraught and noisy world, the quiet, observant voice is precious. The voice that says, 'Look, here is a cricket, alive and wondrous. Here is a wild rose.' There is no such voice more elegant, more to be trusted, than Richard Mabey's

- David Quammen, author of Breathless,

Mabey is both literally and metaphorically at home in The Accidental Garden. It is his own niche that provides space and creative sustenance to range widely over many of the concerns that have captivated him over the years and, most importantly, it offers the space for him to reflect on how we can be good neighbours with the other organisms with which we share our planet.

Garden Design Journal

Masterly ... This new work by the ever-marvellous Mabey exhorts us to pay our dues to the other inhabitants of our gardens accordingly

The Bookseller

Praise for Richard Mabey: 'Visionary, witty and erudite

Telegraph

Mabey is a national treasure

Sunday Times

A superb stylist with profound tenderness and compassion towards the more-than-human world

- Robert Macfarlane,

Our greatest nature writer

New Scientist

Mabey is the kind of person you wish you had with you on every country walk

Country Life

As in all his work, what comes across is [Mabey's] abiding passion for plants and the sustenance they give both imaginatively and spiritually

- Bella Bathurst,

We are lucky to have [Richard Mabey]. He has changed the way we are with plants and made a loved world lovelier still

Observer